Kirsten Luckins is a poet, performer, and producer based in Teesside.
She is artistic director of the Tees Women Poets , leading women of all backgrounds in Teesside to create and perform work about the issues that affect them and the values they live by.
She is a director, dramaturg and creative producer specialising in taking poetry to the stage, and mentoring performance poets to find their authentic physical expression.
Her work is based on ten years experience working as creative producer for national performance poetry organisation Apples and Snakes, and on twenty years experience as a shiatsu and qi gong practitioner.
Participatory arts
Kirsten has a wealth of experience in devising and delivering educational and community arts projects that centre on creative writing, such as:
Celebrating Change, a digital storytelling project and poetry blog created with filmmaker Laura Degnan that ran 2017-2022.
Soft Animal, a wellbeing project co-creating zines of nature poetry in experimental formats with residents of Wearside.
Summer Streets festival, in which she interviewed people about their lockdown walks in order to write micro-poetry based on their experiences, and present it to them in the form of collaged zines.
Spoken word theatre
The Trouble With Compassion, which was accompanied by a poetry collection of the same name.
The Moon Cannot Be Stolen, which wove together 20-year old travel journals with live tabla music, and was nominated for a Saboteur Award for Best Solo Show.
Creative production & dramaturgical work includes
The Empathy Experiment by Rose Condo, (shortlisted for Saboteur Awards 2020 Best Spoken Word Show; winner Best Solo Show Manchester Fringe 2019)
Performed launch of Rare Birds : Voices of Holloway Prison by Natalie Scott
Residencies and commissions
2024 – MIMA poet-in-residence, responding to the ceramics collection in poetry and film
2023 – Nightfall Festival, ‘Voices of the Trees’
2023 – libretto for Walk the Plank production ‘Tower of Light’ at Tall Ships, Hartlepool
2022 – Nightfall Festival, ‘Teesside Skies’
2021 – Nightfall Festival, ‘Stellar Rainbow’
2020 – Wintertide Festival, ‘Small Lights’ haiku installation
2019-20 – MIMA poet-in-residence, responding to archive documents in blackout, erasure and found poetries.
2015 – Hartlepool History Then & Now
2014 – Bloodaxe Archives – in poems, a performance piece and some text-based visual art in response to ephemera from Bloodaxe Press.
Publications and awards
2021 Passerine (Bad Betty Press)
2017 Utterly Otterly (Bx3)
2016 The Trouble With Compassion (Burning Eye)
2021 – Laurel Prize for Eco-Poetry, shortlisted
2020 – Artlyst Award, highly commended
2015 – York Mix, shortlisted
2024 – Wenlock International Poetry Prize, shortlisted
Kirsten’s poems have appeared in print and online in magazines such as Strix, Under The Radar, The Blue Nib, Obsessed With Pipework, The Interpreter’s House, Butcher’s Dog, Ink, Sweat & Tears, critical art journal Corridor 8, and Magma.
Kirsten Luckins 
Hi Kirsten, I wondered if you were local to the Hartlepool area and if you would be interested in visiting a 1 hour after school slam poetry club one time. I would love if you could email me to discuss this further.
Hi, yes I am based in Hartlepool and would be delighted to visit the slam club. My email is imeldasays-at-gmail-dom-com.